What Unions Do for Regulation

Abstract

The question of how organized labor affects the content, enforcement, and outcomes of regulation is especially timely in an era in which protective laws and regulations are being scaled back or minimally enforced and union membership is in decline. This article surveys literature from a wide array of regulatory domains—antidiscrimination, environmental protection, product quality, corporate governance, law enforcement, tax compliance, minimum wage and overtime protection, and occupational safety and health—in an effort to identify common findings on what unions do for regulation. Literature on the topic has taken up five questions: how labor unions affect the passage of protective laws and regulations; how they affect the outcomes that regulators target; how they affect the intensity of regulatory enforcement; the specific activities and channels of influence they use to influence regulated outcomes; and the role they play in self-regulation. Drawing on empirical literature from the domains listed, I review and analyze literature on each of these questions and offer several conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Workplace Domination and Labor Unions

“…There is a vast literature demonstrating that unions ensure greater consideration is given to workers’ interests by ensuring regulatory compliance. Reviewing decades of studies across a wide array of jurisdictions, Morantz (2017, 520–26) finds, inter alia , that unionized workplaces are significantly more likely to adhere to standards of worker health and safety, more likely to compensate individuals injured in the workplace, and typically exhibit lower rates of traumatic and fatal injuries. She also finds that workplaces with a significant union presence are more likely to adhere to regulations requiring the payment of overtime and exhibit lower rates of wage discrimination against women and people of color.…”

“… 1 Excellent surveys of the empirical literature may be found in Ahlquist (2017), Morantz (2017), and Rosenfeld (2014). …”

Cumulative Unionization and Physical Health Disparities among Older Adults

“…Union members typically have lower rates of excessive overtime work and less exposure to precarious and contingent work, which may reduce workplace stress (Hirsch, Macpherson, and DuMond 1997; Morantz 2017; Trejo 1993). Unions provide an institutionalized platform for workers to organize collectively against unsafe conditions; the classic work by Wallace (1987) shows that higher union membership rate is associated with significant declines in fatal and nonfatal injury rates among miners.…”

The effects of public goods framing for a union default policy

“…Second, studies show unions reduce income inequality by compressing pay within and between organizations (Card et al, 2020; Huang et al, 2017; Metcalf et al, 2001) and by successfully lobbying governments for social programmes primarily benefiting the poor (Ahlquist, 2017; VanHeuvelen and Brady, 2022). Third, research confirms unions play an effective role in monitoring and enforcing employer compliance with laws governing, for example, health and safety, minimum wages, holidays and discrimination (Morantz, 2017). Fourth, recent international evidence from large samples also suggests unions improve the well-being of workers through, for example, their efforts to regulate workloads, working hours, overtime and job security (Blanchflower and Bryson, 2020).…”

“…See Card (2001) for evidence of greater union effects on low wages. See Morantz (2017) for evidence of positive union effects on legal compliance. For international comparisons, see wol.iza.org/uploads/articles/35/pdfs/union-wage-effects.pdf.’…”